Referendum numbers on secession in the Shenandoah Valley

Considering I brought up the use of coercion in the referendum for secession in Virginia (and more specifically in Page County in the Shenandoah Valley) in yesterday’s post, I thought it might be interesting to ride with this topic a little more. Today, I’m laying out the raw numbers on the referendum for all of the counties of the Shenandoah Valley (including Berkeley and Jefferson County, which later became part of West Virginia; and Rockbridge County, which – though some consider it part – isn’t technically considered a part of the Shenandoah Valley under the definition of a “valley“). Incidentally, I questioned it yesterday, but it looks like Gods & Generals did the necessary research on the actual numbers of the vote in Rockbridge County.

Robert, great work. If I might offer some observations… I checked the data for the Virginia referendum and the Presidential election in 1860, and more people voted in May 1861 than had voted in November 1860. In Rockingham, for example, 2,913 voters voted for President. In May 1861, 3,034 voted for or against secession, and increase of 121. Now intuitively, one would think that it voter intimidation were going on, that minority voters (anti-secessionists in Rockingham) would show their opposition by simply avoiding the polls. I have seen your posts making reference to voter intimidation and coercion, so I went to the library and looked into Unionists and the Civil War Experience, vol. 1, which covers Mount Crawford, the seeming center of intimidation of Unionists voters. I looked up the cases of four men at random: Adam Gladden, Abraham Heatwole, John Keagy, and Noah Landes. Gladden voted for secession out of fear. Heatwole voted for secession, not because he believed in secession per se, but because he believed it would avert war. Keagy and Landes did not vote at all, although they say they opposed secession.
Yet the overall vote in Rockingham was up over the November numbers.
Imagine a group of roughnecks presented themselves at the poll in an anti-secession precinct, and tried to intimidate the voters into voting for a policy they opposed. It seems likely that voters would simply not show up, or, if the roughnecks were particularly violent or obnoxious, that the anti-secession majority would run them out of town or perhaps even start shooting at them in extreme cases.
My question is, has anyone compiled the results of the Southern Claims Commission in the Valley counties to see just how many Unionists were forced to vote against their consciences or intimidated into not voting at all?
One final thought. The Southern Claims Commission is itself a source of questionable objectivity, since the claimants only get paid if they can succeed in convincing the commission that they were loyal. I believe Patton commented on how difficult it was to find a Nazi in Germany in the summer of 1945. In a similar vein, finding Unionists after the defeat of the Confederacy should not have been too difficult, especially if these Unionists could receive money by convincing the agents of the conquerors that “I have always been a Unionist; my cousin will back me up on that.”

There are no complete summaries of the Southern Unionists claims in the Valley. I’ve gone through all of Page County’s claims, and have dabbled in the claims from other Valley counties. Not sure if you are aware of it, but there are four books (so far) that cover claims for Rockingham County. I love the books, but there’s simply so much material in them, it’s going to take some time to lay it all out, and analyze everything once the project is complete.

As for voter intimidation, there were some who stayed home, some who voted under duress, and some who voted under the assumption that voting for secession would save the Union (I’ve seen this claim made by a couple of men). Whether we can believe what we read… well, there’s a lot to consider.

Were Southern Unionists simply coming out of the woodwork in the time of the claims, when they really weren’t Southern Unionists during the war? In Seasons of War, Daniel Sutherland suggests this with Culpeper County, and it may have been the case in some areas. I don’t doubt this as a possibility, and, as a comparison, nor do I doubt that some who applied for Confederate pensions weren’t really “good Confederates”. In my research, however, I’ve seen where some who applied for claims were ratted out for their lies. In Page County, one fellow applied, and, after the background check was made, there were several people provided affidavits that testified that he was all out secesh during the war. Needless to say, he wasn’t approved for a claim. Interestingly, he’s the only one I’ve seen in the county who was ratted out with such determination.

The disadvantage that we work with is trying to figure out the fine lines between those who were approved, those who were disapproved, and those who were barred. It wasn’t simply the matter of a cousin backing you up on your claim. True, some relatives did provide testimony in support of a claim, but third parties were interviewed as well, and, as I mentioned, there was some sort of background investigation. Also, I haven’t always seen it, but there were instances in which the taking of the ironclad oath (“Damnesty oath”) was mentioned as having been taken by some. I’d love to find county records that elaborate on who was in that number… and compare it with those who applied.

Thanks for the good response. It was not my intention to suggest that any particular applicant was being dishonest (the commission was pretty cagey about that). Just that the whole system is a bit tainted, since money was awarded to those who could prove, to the satisfaction of the commission, that they had been loyal.
I looked at the voting in the northern-most county in Alabama that sent a pro-secession delegation to the Alabama Convention, Calhoun County. The local paper had reported precinct by precinct results of the 24 December 1860 convention election. There was a slate of immediate unilateral secession candidates, and a slate of candidates pledged to oppose immediate unilateral secession (called Co-operationists, the idea being that Alabama should cooperate with other southern states in proposing a compromise plan and then secede together only after this compromise had been turned down by the northern states). The pro-secession slate won 75%-25%, and the voter turnout once again was greater in the December vote than it had been in the November one. What is more, there was a lively debate in the precincts of the county in both the November Presidential and the December Convention, as candidates of both slates took to the hustings across the county. Generally, precincts that went for Douglas also voted for the Cooperation. But in almost every precinct, minority votes were there, so dissent was possible.
I would love to see the results for the precincts in Rockingham to see if this pattern held there as well. On the other hand, the Unionist numbers there were tiny, so maybe Frederick would be a better test.

Interesting. I’m a little more familiar with Marion Co., Alabama, but that northwestern section of the state particularly interests me because of it being the source for many men in the 1st Alabama Cavalry (US).

I think I found it in a booklet in the Library of Virginia. It’s a rather obscure source, in the reference section. I don’t think it was ever published. Simply something put together (during the Centennial, I believe) for the library.

The 1ist Alabama (US) Cavalry had folks from several north Alabama counties. Winston County seemed to have been the center of Alabama Unionism, although there were certainly Unionist all over north Alabama.
One thing to bear in mind about the relationship of Cooperationism and Unionism. Cooperationist across the Deep South included a broad spectrum of folks opposed to immediate secession. Some believed in secession, but did not want Alabama to secede by herself and be left facing the other 34 states, should the other southern states chicken out (Alabama elected delegates to the state convention on December 24, 1860, and it seems likely that news of SC’s secession had gotten to the Calhoun County seat, Jacksonville, before that election, so this category of Cooperationist was disarmed in some precincts; voters knew if Alabama seceded, she would not be alone). Others believed in secession, but wanted to give the people of the northern states one last chance to come to some kind of compromise before Alabama pulled the trigger on secession. Some believed in secession in the abstract, but were convinced that the time had not come to exercise the right. Others opposed secession in any and all cases. All of these were Cooperationists. Only those in the last category (maybe the last two) were likely to join the Union army.

Perhaps the out and out Unionists (defined by a refusal to tolerate secession under any conditions) were such a small minority in the Deep South they formed common cause with others, whose commitment to the Union was more conditional.
My interest in Unionism comes from my grad school work. I am pursuing a PhD in history, and the functioning of nineteenth century republicanism is of interest to me. Your blog is quite helpful.

I see unconditional Unionists, and then multiple tiers of conditional Unionists… the problem is trying to sort out the “conditionalists” from one another. As for Southern Unionists being a minority, I think the unconditionals and the conditionals who remained pro-Union can be counted as a minority, but then, I think the “majority” can stand some dissection as well. I see conditional Confederates and unconditional Confederates in a similar light… to say nothing of the pacifists and the general “leave-aloners”. After all is said and done, who really was the majority?

I’m glad to see that this site has been of use to you, and I enjoy the discussion. So, you completed your M.A. at Tech?

Forgot to add, Unionists claims were relatively heavy for Rockingham County (by comparison with the rest of the Valley counties). I can’t recall the stats for Frederick Co., but feel certain that they weren’t greater than Rockingham. Problem is, you have to consider the number in Rockingham who were religious dissenters.

Robert, excellent point. I would agree that there were a million shades of gray between unconditional secessionists (e.e. guys like William Lowndes Yancey or Robert Barnwell Rhett) and unconditional unionists. I am not sure who to put in this category, maybe Abraham Lincoln in 1860. At least no Virginian, since even folks like George Summers of Kanawha County or Waitman Willey of Monongalia made arguments against secession that were couched in conditional terms. These two argued that secession would be bad policy, and in any case, the time had not yet come to secede. One suspects that they may never had come to support secession, but, between February 8th and early April, they were trying to build a political coalition, and it was working, until around April 15th.
Your blog is immensely useful.
I took my MAs at King’s College London and the University of Alabama. I teach Military History at Virginia Tech.